


Black Garb

by Tolpen



Series: Downey Centric Headcanon Pile [6]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Assassins' Guild Traditions, Atteroy is an OC stop scrounging the wiki, Coat - Freeform, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, It's Called Fashion, Outfit Description, Plotless, Psychological, Unrequited Love, implied minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 12:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tolpen/pseuds/Tolpen
Summary: There is a tradition regarding Assassin's "official" black garb: It better be good.





	Black Garb

Assassin have a lots of rules, but those are meant to deliberate interpretation. Rules exist only so the world wouldn't shamble into some kind of mayhem. They are sometimes called Rules, with the capital R, but whether you stress the first letter or not, they aren't all that important if you aren't caught breaking them. They don't make the capital A in the word Assassin. A good Assassin can ignore the rules, but they (until very recently the pronoun was “he”) honour traditions. The traditions are not written anywhere, they are not enforced, they haven't got any capital letter. You can notice them if you observe carefully, and when you are an Assassin, you always observe carefully, because if you don't, then you are a walking corpse.

Here is a tradition: The first work you do, your first inhumation, you always do it in a new black. Usually it's your official black garb, if there was something as black garb being official. Usually you always wear that black garb on your every next work. If you are lucky, you are buried in it one day too. You should mind what is it you wear on your first job. You are able to afford to wear good stuff, because when you are an Assassin, you get paid in advance at least half of the price. There is no tradition saying that your first job has to happen after you make it thorough the exams and that it has to be the Run.

Downey's did his first job when he was 16 years, 8 months and 8 days old. He paid his garb special attention. He wanted something that would last him a lifetime, and for once he had ignored his feeling that he wouldn't hit the age of 17.

There was a shirt. It was heavy silk with steel buttons with edges sharp enough to cut his fingers when he wasn't careful. Never put it on when intoxicated. It was a raven-cut, high stiff collar, tight cuffs, thin waist. At the time he didn't know it, but he picked it up because someone had once remarked that such a cut in a shirt looks good on him. That someone had been a classmate. Getting any reaction was, and still is, very hard. Let alone anything this... positive. Downey was trying to impress. He still is trying to impress, he supposes, but he has given up trying to do so with his looks. He still has all his shirts raven-cut, they have to be tailored because such a cut has been for over twenty years out of fashion. It's a habit now. A trademark if you will. The shirt, the one shirt had long time ago frayed and fallen apart.

Trousers, but those weren't all that important. But he wore trousers, because not wearing trousers of any kind can cause quite the fuss. Boots, now those were far more interesting. They were high, although the trousers hid them from ankle up. Hard leather, lacing all the way up to his knees. Steel in the tip and the heel. And a very soft sole, only just so he wouldn't get his feet dirty. It felt almost like walking around barefoot. People keep telling him that Commander Vimes can read the Ankh-Morpork streets with his feet. Maybe. Downey can read Ankh-Morpork roofs, so he doesn't dismiss this legend as stupid. He had outgrown the boots. The sole reinforced into something stronger than a thin line, he had given them to his oldest son. Gods know where that boy is now. Let's hope they don't know, though, because drawing gods' attention is a bad idea.

And lastly the coat. He still has it. It's somewhere between anthracite black and all colours, depends on the lighting. It's long, covers him from neck to ankles, it blows with the wind, but only slightly. It's a very heavy coat. Leather on the outside. Immaculate brocade lining. There are a couple of buttons, but there are more buckles to hold it close. Not that he wears it closed often. It's big enough that he can put it on the top of his regular woollen coat he wears in winter.

Students often see him wearing it and they don't know it's his black garb. For Downey every day in work is a work on the job. Gods' grief, his every other decision is about people getting killed! That is the difference between the Head of Assassins and the Patrician. The Head condemns people to death with words and action, the Patrician with lack of them. Did you know that historically, the title the title wasn't Head, but Roof-General? Downey knows it, it was the very last thing Dr. Follett had told him, or told anyone really. He said it while coughing his lungs out, wrapped in Downey's black coat of all colours, and the boy was trying to drag him up the stairs back to the Guild. He managed to bring the body, but not Dr. Follett. People call the time of Snapcase's rule many things: Time of terror, the past regime, good old times. Downey calls it war. For him it has always been nothing but it.

Within the guild it is rumoured that Downey wears in his coat so many weapons, that the density of the steel present can deflect an arrow. Downey himself isn't sure. He knows that if he knows about the arrow coming, he can catch it in hand from ten feet away, sixteen feet and three inches if it's a crossbow bolt. Sure, the coat can deflect them, but it's probably less because of the blades in his pockets and more likely caused by the very fine chainmail between the outer hide and the inner brocade, sewn in like a quilt. It hasn't always been there. Downey had put it there himself, and it is a great work he had done there, considered he had to do it left handed. It was at least something to do when he was recovering in hospital from the very unpleasant two weeks he had spent in the Palace dungeons. He only wishes he could sew his nerves back together in his right hand just so easily.

In the left breast pocket he wears his licence, it's old enough to be still the half-fake library card on the name Martin Gale (MS, DGS), the 5-place card number ending with 01. Sure, it gives him the aces to the Dark Library, but at the time it had been printed, it also meant within the Guild that he is a licensed Assassin. There are still two thin needles going thorough the paper, unseen unless you hold the card against the direct light. They are soaked in the extract of the crimson lily-of-the-valley, very ugly death within half an hour, a lot of blood foam from nose and mouth, total organ failure. It would be very easy to break the card at half and press the edges against skin. Meant for personal use only in an extremely dire case when silence is valuable. Some older Assassins took gladly the new form of licenses, but Downey hasn't. Since 1982, they are printed on thinner and larger paper, much more officials with the coat of arms of the city and the Guild, folded and kept in a book-like case which usually used to be the student's index in their times at the Academy. With the introduction of the dwaf-made lead press, the licenses are printed that way, which is even cheaper and reduces the need for blank spaces. All of this still has to be told to Lipwig, because as good as his forging skills are, his dedication to research could be greatly improved.

In the right breast pocket is a flask. A very fine steel thing, oak on the outside, silver adornments. The contents vary and at the end of the they a refill is needed. Always. So far no one had tried to poison any drink he had put in his flask, not even when he had left the flask in the most convenient places. Downey is not necessarily like and has never been outside of the lectures, but he does a lot of work in the Guild and he has always done it. Keeping the archive in order, repairing the books in the library, teaching, seeing to the financials. Especially the finance papers cause the flask to empty. He is trying to get the Guild to pay all the due taxes, but gods help him, he is not even in the half of that load. But if he pulls an all-night with the papers, the flask to keep him sane and warm in the archive, he might finish this box this week, which means the next Crueltide the last decade could be paid, finally. Downey is well aware now that he is still trying to impress, but it is hard to get any reaction in return. If he outdoes himself, he is at least not under the fire of a pointed silence every afternoon. The other Guild members had long time ago figured out that if Downey isn't there to do all that work, _someone els_ e will have to do it. The flask is left alone.

Next to the hidden pocket with one-use sealed vials full of various venoms, none of them bigger than a child's pinky finger but then they don't need to be, is the latest improvement to his coat: Small pocket, especially padded and it is obviously built more for comfort than any other of these pockets. There are even miniature cushions made out of fluff, but Downey isn't responsible for these. It is just that his personal dis-organizer spends there so much time that it has decided to make itself more comfortable. It even has a small abacus there, although when it comes to math, Downey is usually faster than the little imp. The imp, nicknamed You Thingy by his owner, is black, because when you belong to an Assassin, you have a decorum to hold to. You Thingy likes being owned by him, because he is one of the few rare people who read manuals to things. Which is why Downey is called Doctor Downey by it instead of Enter Your Name Here, and also why the dis-organizer has a protective password question. The question is: “How would you like your tea?” There has been a number of people who have tried to pry into the disorganizer, zero success. They suppose the answer is either a horrible pun or something horribly depressive and angry. Captain Angua had a lucky guess when she once sneaked into Downey's office: “With double arsenic, olé.”

The collar of the coat seems extra reinforced, although it is not. The extra mass people mistake for reinforcement is actually a folded hood out of the same very fine chainmail which is sewn in the coat. It's so fine that it seems like linen, but of course it is a bit heavier. It would be very shiny if it hadn't been blackened. Downey had put it on his head exactly once, he was climbing a lamp post at the time and was under focused fire. He had gotten some bruises on his way up, more bruises and a dead classmate on his way down, although the body was what he had been climbing for in the first place, and most importantly he hadn't got any bolt stuck in his head or anywhere else. The hood has a V-shaped tip which can cover most of the forehead up to the bridge of the nose. It's heavy enough to make Downey bow his head when he is wearing it.

It's an old coat, heavily worn, for more then a half of Downey's life. It shows. She forearms of the sleeves have been smoothed into a weak gleam on countless surfaces. At the edges the leather is cracked, no matter how well it is oiled every week. When people see it, they think of foggy mornings and lamp posts with hanging nooses, and they think of the adrenaline rush of wild running, the excitement in a free fall, the burning in chest coming from hysterical laughter while being out of breath, and they think of nights sitting at fireplace with large dogs, rustling of paper and the acidic smell of ink. They can't really explain why they are reminded of all these things. Despite all the cleaning the coat has been thorough, it's a dry clean only, it still smells a bit mossy and a bit like gin and a bit like a mint and a awful great deal a lot like Ankh-Morpork. If Downey has it cleaned outside of the city, the city stench disappears into a faint smell, but the moment he brings it back beyond the city gates, it is as it has never been.

Here is a thing, it's a grounding coat. All its heaviness doesn't allow you not to have your feet firm on the ground, or roof at least if you want to be a nitpicking linguistic bastard. It is like a fatherly hug, done properly for once. It keeps you warm and safe when you wear it. It is like a shell. It pushes your shoulders down and unless you want back sore as if it has been raked in the evening, you are going to keep a straight and proper posture while wearing it. The coat isn't padded in the shoulders. If it was, Downey wouldn't be able to fit _his_ into it. Some things don't change with time, not if you beat the shit out of a heavy boxing bag every other day so you wouldn't hit people instead. Even after all the years, Downey is a large man, shaped like a statue of an Ephebean athlete, except he is dressed. Lack of clothing can cause quite a fuss.

There is bound to be a bag of mint humbugs in the coat, although the exact location varies just as much as knives and daggers switch their positions. But you can bet five bucks that there are mint humbugs, that they are delicious and that atleast half of them can kill you. When he was younger, Downey was a fan of Überwaldian roulette and carried a velvet pouch of bitter almonds. One of the almonds was actually a regular almond injected with cyanide. Every day Downey would eat as much of the almonds as he felt like, which was around ten at least, and when there was one last almond left, he just added more of the fillings and started over. He wasn't a selfish brat, of course, anyone who would like a bitter almond was free to take one or a handful. He had managed to chew thorough the bag to one last almond five times when it stopped being fun

Along with the bag of humbugs is a small silver case for cigarettes. It's empty, it has been empty for years now. It was a birthday gift from the first class he had been teaching and the head of. Out of the twenty-two boys, sixteen had made it to the graduation. They gave him a cigarette case because they had always seen him in expensive clothes but smoking cheap cigarettes from a frayed cardboard packet. For a time the case had been home for interesting deceased butterfly specimen, but eventually Downey lost interest in keeping the butterfly collection and donated it to the school museum and had never looked at it since. At the rare occasions when the Guild Provost and coincidentally the Patrician I one person visits the Guild grounds and wanders into the museum, he is heard saying: “I wish I had as much time as this, uh, collector had,” while frowning at the display cases full of colourful wings. For a long time Downey had planned that in the next fire that would take the city ablaze, the butterfly collection would be completely lost. He is years past that thought. He has come to the realization that burning bridges doesn't illuminate the way enough to see and doesn't keep him warm. If anything, it only makes enough smoke to suffocate.

Here is another thing: The coat is very easy to slip into it and fasten the buckles while running. Downey knows this, because whenever the Patrician (always the Patrician, never Vetinari or Havelock or Dog-botherer, always and only the Patrician) decides to interrupt his scavenged nap-time, Downey rushes out in his pyjamas, only slips into the nearest boots, lacing be damned, and throws on the coat, and halfway to the Palace he doesn't look like he has been sleeping five minutes earlier. He wonders if the Patrician knows about it, that Downey runs on three hours of sleep a day (in arithmetic mean) and so much caffeine that it should have killed him seven years ago. Seven _full_ years ago, mind you, not by the common calendar. He fears that one day the coffee won't be enough and he'll have to switch to coca. He still remembers the shock and terror he felt when he realized that he had just turned a pot of Klatchian coffee bottoms up without even noticing. Ever since, Atteroy approaches him very cautiously. Downey is a bit grumpy that he cannot put Klatchian coffee in a thermos, as thermos are made out of metal (he is not generous enough to call it iron). He can fit a whole quart thermos in one of the pockets of the coat, which saves lives in the City Council meetings, because gods help him if he hasn't his tea there. On a related note, how comes nobody has ever proposed a contract to take care of Lord Rust?

There had been gloves to his black garb too, fine lamb skin, almost like silk to touch, soft and always warm. He sometimes wonders what had happened to them.

The thing about the rules is that they exist so the world doesn't fall apart. If you are in your right mind and careful enough not to get caught, you can break them, like a fish breaks thorough the river current to swim upstream where the water is cleaner on more oxygenated so it's easier to breathe than the mud downstream. Traditions, well, nothing really happens if you break those. But you don't. Because traditions are so you wouldn't fall apart.

Downey has a coat. It's a good coat, heavy, long, warm, sturdy enough to deflect an arrow, and black enough for an Assassin to wear it for a lifetime. Downey had done his first job in it. If he is lucky, someday someone will bury him in it, too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oneinspats made me do this!


End file.
